No superconductivity in Pb₉ Cu₁ (PO₄)₆O found in orbital and spin fluctuation exchange calculations

Abstract

Finding a material that turns superconducting under ambient conditions has been the goal of over a century of research, and recently Pb10−xCux(PO4)6O aka LK-99 has been put forward as a possible contestant. In this work, we study the possibility of electronically driven superconductivity in LK-99 also allowing for electron or hole doping. We use an ab initio derived two-band model of the Cu eg orbitals for which we determine interaction values from the constrained random phase approximation (cRPA). For this two-band model we perform calculations in the fluctuation exchange (FLEX) approach to assess the strength of orbital and spin fluctuations. We scan over a broad range of parameters and enforce no magnetic or orbital symmetry breaking. Even under optimized conditions for superconductivity, spin and orbital fluctuations turn out to be too weak for superconductivity anywhere near to room-temperature. We contrast this finding to non-self-consistent RPA, where it is possible to induce spin singlet d-wave superconductivity at Tc ≥300K if the system is put close enough to a magnetic instability.